Cancer Today Coverage From the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium

For 35 years, the mission of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) has been to provide a forum for researchers, health care professionals and patient advocates to share the most recent updates and cutting-edge information about breast cancer research.

​The symposium, held every year in San Antonio, Texas, is the largest breast cancer research conference, boasting thousands of attendees from more than 100 countries.

SABCS is hosted by four prestigious and highly respected institutions: the Cancer Therapy and Research Center (CTRC) at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and Baylor College of Medicine. The driving force behind this collaboration is the shared mission of these four organizations to advance progress in breast cancer research.

​From Dec. 4–8, Cancer Today contributing writer Melissa Weber​ will be covering the exciting new research and innovations being discussed at the symposium. Check back here each day for her coverage of the latest in breast cancer research and treatment.

Weber is an Austin, Texas–based freelance writer and editor specializing in health and medicine. Her work has been published by many national publications and nonprofits, including Cancer Today.

Check out the Cancer Today website daily for important news and information about breast cancer research presented at this esteemed symposium. Also, don’t forget to follow Cancer Today on Twitter @CancerTodaymag​ and Facebook​.

“Another piece of the breast cancer puzzle was just fit into place,” said C. Kent Osborne, director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

“There are going to be these mutations that are perhaps contributing to the cancer, but they’re pretty rare in the population. But that’s important for that particular patient to know,” Osborne said during a press conference at the meeting. Osborne was not involved in the study.

“HER2 mutations may actually be more common in women with advanced breast cancer,” Osborne said. “I will bet that when Dr. Bose and others begin to look at metastatic cancer that is presumably resistant to the treatment patients got earlier in their disease, they’re going to find a greater percentage of these [HER2] mutations,” he said.

Fatigue May Be The Reason Behind Chemobrain

Posted: Dec. 7, 2012 – 3:40 p.m. CT

Maybe you’ve walked into a room only to forget why you went in there in the first place. Or maybe you’ve lost your train of thought mid-sentence. It’s more common than you think: As many as one in three cancer survivors experience the mental fog better known as chemobrain.

But chemotherapy may have little to do with it, researchers said Friday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). The culprit may actually be fatigue. Here’s why: Breast cancer patients experienced cognition problems before treatment even started.

“When people are fatigued, their brains aren’t functioning as well. It takes more effort to function, and then they get more fatigued. It’s a downward spiral,” said Bernadine Cimprich, the study’s lead researcher and associate professor emerita at the University of Michigan School of Nursing in Ann Arbor.

Cimprich started by separating women into three groups. One group awaited post-surgery chemotherapy, while another was about to start radiation. A third group of women – the control group – did not have breast cancer.

Before treatment and again one month after treatment, the women answered questions about their fatigue level. They also spent an hour or so pushing a “yes” or “no” button in response to progressively harder memory questions while a functional MRI machine took pictures of their brains. Called a verbal working memory task, the test allowed researchers to measure activation in an area of the brain that supports working memory.

Turns out, the more fatigued breast cancer patients were, the less the memory area of their brains lit up and the more they experienced cognition problems, both before treatment and over time. The mind fog hit chemotherapy patients the worst. “There was something about anticipating chemotherapy that suggested there was an added anxiety. The anxiety and worry were linked to fatigue,” said Cimprich, who presented the findings at SABCS.

Sandy Castillo fell into a mental haze as soon as she started chemotherapy three years ago. “I’d be in the middle of a full-on conversation and then the words and thoughts would just vanish,” said Castillo, 43, of Houston. “The other big issue was sheer confusion because I could not focus on one thing long enough to finish it. It was exhausting.”

Castillo said she often felt stupid and even guilty that she couldn’t pick up the mental pieces.

The good news is, fatigue and anxiety can be managed. Strategies like yoga, mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy all work, Cimprich said.

Nevertheless, doctors here are thrilled to finally have a way to help patients.

“I’ve wondered in my own practice whether just the stress of having been diagnosed with cancer and the anticipation of the treatment and the concern of if I’m going to live or die may contribute [to cognitive problems],” said C. Kent Osborne, director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Osborne was not involved in the study.

This isn’t the final word on the matter. A single study isn’t enough, Cimprich cautioned. Other studies must be done to see if the findings stick.

Even so, Cimprich is confident “chemobrain” is a limiting term that ends up excluding breast cancer patients receiving radiation therapy who also experience problems with thinking.

“If you’re suffering from this, you know it becomes so frustrating. If we can reduce some of the factors that contribute to it, we can help people function better,” she said.

The nonprofit holds nightly “Hot Topics Mentor Sessions” where mentor physicians and scientists take the day’s research highlights and put them into perspective for patients. The Alamo Breast Cancer Foundation president and 18-year breast cancer survivor Sandi Stanford remembers barely 25 people filling the room during one of the first Mentor Sessions. In 2011, more than 300 people packed the room each night.

“For the patient advocates and survivors, it’s a setting where they can truly understand the science. They leave the Mentor Sessions with the confidence to go back home and talk to their oncologists,” Stanford said. Mentor Sessions will be held Dec. 5-7 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

On the science side, offering a sneak peek at what’s hot at this year’s SABCS is symposium co-director Peter Ravdin, director of the Breast Health Clinic at UT Health Science Center:

• ATLAS trial: Is 10 years of tamoxifen better than the standard five years at preventing recurrence?

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